Tag Archives: Dreamscape Theatre

Listen in as the team behind the world premiere of Pete Rex—playwright Alexander V. Thompson, director Brad Raimondo, and performers Greg Carere, Simon Winheld, and Rosie Sowa—discuss the uses & dangers of fantasy, making your hometown a central character in your script, eerie resonance with the political moment, fun actor challenges, familiarity with the characters and situations onstage, loving someone while hating their inaction, crossing Ionesco with Albee, and, of course, dinosaurs.

“…this place that had been something, and turned into kind of a ‘non-place’ through the loss of industry, and the loss of jobs, and the economy. And we were all, ‘that feels like it should be in here now’…I think that’s something that we really want people to take away…the experience of these places…that have gone from thriving, to nowhere, and what that does to people…”

It’s likely that John Law blurred the line between the two better, or at least earlier, than anyone else.

The incredible true story of the exploits of this 18th Century genius/rapscallion proves fertile ground for playwright Matt Herzfeld‘s The Improbable Fall, Rise & Fall Of John Law (Part 1) currently being produced by The Dreamscape Theatre and running at IRT Theater.

Listen in as Matt, along with John Law himself, actor Greg Carere, discuss perception, mathematical purity, finding inspiration in Men of Wealth, morality in the grey, and how economics was, and remains, a confidence game.

“…John, to some degree, is a confidence man. And economics, to some degree, is a confidence game. The whole system works because people believe in it…and so perception is a part of that, because you have to sort of look the part…”
“…we get to sort of see the illusion that he creates, at every level…”Continue reading →

As director Brad Raimondonotes at the top of this interview, there are stories from history that just seem to stick with you. It was because the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 wouldn’t leave him or playwright Ricardo Pérez González alone that The Dreamscape Theatre developed In Fields Where They Lay, currently playing at The New Ohio.

But you’re definitely not going to the theatre for a history lesson—this is a beautifully-told story that resonates in a powerful way, especially at the holiday season of this particular moment in time (one hundred years on from the Christmas depicted in the play).

Listen in as Brad & actor Spencer Davis Milford discuss starting at the ending and building the play from there, propaganda, a long incubation, and how to tell an epic story on a human scale.

Oh, and your interviewer has a moment of realization about the origin of Tom & Jerry.

“I think all of us have, at one point or another, had a moment where we’ve really felt like ‘this is the right time to be working on telling a story about a group of armed men in uniforms, deciding to put their guns down for a little while, and think about who the people are on the other side’…”